Oxfordshire firm Cobalt Light Systems, an optic instrument manufacturer based at Milton Park in Abingdon, has been named the top company in The Sunday Times BT Business SME Export Track 100 league table 2015. They have posted a two year international sales growth of 328.42% per annum, helped by the recent set-up of a first international outpost in Washington DC to support growth in the Americas. 

Security gates at more than 65 international airports, including Amsterdam's Schiphol and Paris's Charles de Gaulle, rely on Cobalt's machines to scan the contents of our drinks bottles and duty-free shopping to check for explosies. The machines use technology developed in 2004 by Cobalt's chief scientific officer, Pavel Matousek, 52, while he was working at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Oxfordshire. Using scientific principles discovered 80 years ago, he designed a laser that could identify the chemical composition of materials in sealed and opaque packages 

Cobalt began selling overseas in 2011, and in addition to airport liquid testig, its machines are used by two-thirds of the world's top 20 pharmaceutical firms to check the chemical composition of raw materials and manufactured tablets.

For more information about Cobalt click here.

And for more results from The Sunday Times BT Business SME Export Track 100 click here.